Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to an electrical connector to be mounted on a circuit board, and a method for mounting the electrical connector on a circuit board.
Description of the Background Art
Electrical connectors to be mounted on circuit boards through reflow soldering are disclosed in, for example, Patent Literature 1 (Japanese Laid-Open Patent Publication No. 2000-067963) and Patent Literature 2 (Japanese Laid-Open Patent Publication No. 2012-146918).
When installing such electrical connector-mounted circuit boards at locations that are frequently subjected to vibration (e.g., electric systems in automobiles, etc.), a foreign matter or the like in an electrical connector may conceivably move because of the vibration and get caught between connection terminals to cause bad contact. Thus, in order to suppress contamination of foreign matters inside electrical connectors, an electrical connector adopting a structure in which a connection terminal is covered with a housing and a lid (cap) is disclosed in, for example, Patent Literature 3 (Japanese Laid-Open Patent Publication No. 2014-010949).
With the structure of the electrical connector using the housing and the lid disclosed in Patent Literature 3, an advantageous effect of suppressing contamination of foreign matters inside the electrical connector after being mounted on a circuit board can be exerted. In addition, the electrical connector disclosed in Patent Literature 3 enables reflow soldering in a state in which the lid is fitted into the housing. As a result, the electrical connector disclosed in Patent Literature 3 also has an advantageous effect of preventing attachment of foreign matters to a connection terminal and contamination of foreign matters inside an electrical connector during reflow soldering.
In addition, when the structure of the electrical connector disclosed in Patent Literature 3 is used, the lid is fitted into the housing before conducting reflow soldering. As a result, since an operation of fitting the lid is unnecessary during a step of connecting an external component to an electrical connector-mounted circuit board obtained after the soldering, an advantageous effect regarding improvement in productivity is also obtained.
However, in the structure of the electrical connector disclosed in Patent Literature 3 described above having a male terminal whose one end is connected to a circuit board, the other end side thereof and a female terminal connected to the male terminal are completely covered by the housing and the lid. Thus, when reflow soldering the electrical connector disclosed in Patent Literature 3 to the circuit board, the female terminal and the other end side of the male terminal may conceivably not be heated to sufficient temperatures because of heated air generated during reflow not suitably circulating thereto. When the temperatures of these components are not increased sufficiently, heat of the one end of the male terminal is taken away by the female terminal and the other end side of the male terminal, and the temperature of the one end of the male terminal decreases.
When the temperature of the one end of the male terminal is low, increase in temperature of solder on the circuit board where the one end of the male terminal makes contact is affected, and heating of the solder may become insufficient. When heating of the solder becomes insufficient, phenomena such as, for example, the solder not sufficiently melting occur, and the performance of soldering the one end of the male terminal to the circuit board deteriorates.